Linseed oil in gas tank
John Spinnato
automobile gas tank? I read somewhere that it will be carried to the
cylinders, and form a sticky resin, which will seize up the engine. I find
this difficult to believe.
Follow-up question:
If not linseed oil, then what substance can be put into a gas tank that
will either gel up the fuel, or stop the engine from functioning?
Stewart Rowe
Certainly linseed oil will polymerize, as it dos in varnish and oil-base
paints. No information on engines, but I would expect that a good dose in
a tankful, if not cleaned out due to poor performance, would be likely to
cause sticky valves, at least.
The traditional way to gum up an engi9ne is to put _sugar_ in the gas.
Are you really that angry at someone?
Stewart Rowe sr...@tso.cin.ix.net
wa4...@vnet.ibm.com
>Can anyone speculate as to what would result from putting linseed oil in an
>automobile gas tank? I read somewhere that it will be carried to the
>cylinders, and form a sticky resin, which will seize up the engine. I find
>this difficult to believe.
>
>Follow-up question:
>
>If not linseed oil, then what substance can be put into a gas tank that
>will either gel up the fuel, or stop the engine from functioning?
'information is goodness' discussion.) Why would someone want to
put something in their fuel tank which would cause their engine to
seize up, which would require a new engine. (Of course, it's 'obvious'
why they might want to do it to someone else's engine, but that
is a serious crime in most places).
Well, ok, I'll answer. There are a variety of materials, which, when
introduced into the fuel system will cause a variety of engine problems.
I won't do much good to try and list all of the possible materials since there
are so many and since the effects are different. One of the most common
contaminants is water. Or, for example, if you put an elephant into
someone's fuel tank, I can almost guarantee that they'll have car trouble.
Dave
E.C. Lathioor
John Spinnato <jsp...@nyc.pipeline.com> wrote:
>Can anyone speculate as to what would result from putting linseed oil in an
>automobile gas tank? I read somewhere that it will be carried to the
>cylinders, and form a sticky resin, which will seize up the engine. I find
>this difficult to believe.
Yes it is, but I'm not really sure - engines are complicated things.
>
>Follow-up question:
>
>If not linseed oil, then what substance can be put into a gas tank that
>will either gel up the fuel, or stop the engine from functioning?
Well, I've heard sugar in the gas tank really screws things up.
Hopefully your not planning a little neighborhood vigilante exercise? ;)
Regards, Ed
Bruce Hamilton
News is very delayed here, so others have probably responded.
In article <3vgca2$k...@pipe1.nyc.pipeline.com>
jsp...@nyc.pipeline.com (John Spinnato) writes:
>Can anyone speculate as to what would result from putting linseed oil in an
>automobile gas tank? I read somewhere that it will be carried to the
>cylinders, and form a sticky resin, which will seize up the engine. I find
>this difficult to believe.
Well, first you would have to work a little harder. You need to dilute and
stir well to dissolve the oil, otherwise it sits there a big congealed lump
that gradually goes hard. If you just pour enough in, it will reach the
fuel filter and block that.
Modern gasolines have additives to suppress gum formation in manifolds,
on backs of inlet valves, and in jets and nozzles, consequently it would
depend in part on their effectiveness. Linseed oil is unsaturated, but
so is a small % of hydrocardbons, so yes it is likely that combustion
chamber deposits will increase, but their chances of stopping the engine
probably depend more on the driving style - sustained high speed, high
load driving would probably burn them out. It would be short hops that
could allow polymeric deposits to formn.
>If not linseed oil, then what substance can be put into a gas tank that
>will either gel up the fuel, or stop the engine from functioning?
Water stops engines dead. Sugar has a relatively low solubility in
gasoline, consequently unless it rolls to the filter, where it grabs moisture
and forms a viscous film, it doesn't do much ( unless you put kilos in
to cover the filter ). With modern oxygenated gasolines, they will
tend to mop up water and keep tanks dry.
If you suspect water in your tank, and the ambient temperature is cool
*never* use methanol to dry the tank. Methanol has a high phase
separation temperature with straight HC gasolines that contain
water. 0.25% water will cause a methanol/water separate at 15C,
and the more dense layer will not burn in the engine. Use IPA to
dry fuel that is suspected to contain water ( around 1 litre / 40-50 litres
seldem causes a detectable change in performance, higher levels
will ). For large amounts of water the fuel needs to be drained. IPA
has much higher water tolerance, with a much steeper temperature/
water content curve, resulting in lower ambients before separation
occurs. Most quality "drying" agents are IPA, even though MeOH
is about 30-50% of the price of IPA.
Bruce Hamilton